CAT-Common Admission Test 2019

Last Updated -
February 09 2018

CAT 2019 (Common Admission Test) is a national level qualifying exam for admission into MBA, PGDM and other postgraduate management courses in India. It is organized annually by the IIMs on a rotational basis. The entrance test is organized into 2 sessions across 140 exam centers.

Some key features of CAT 2019 are said below:

The application fee is INR 1800 for a General category participant.

It is an online exam which will consist of a blend of 100 MCQ and Non- MCQ type questions. CheckCAT 2019 Exam Format

Exam Dates for CAT 2019

The schedule proposed for CAT 2019 is given below. The important dates regarding admission procedure will be available on the official website of the organizing institute.

Event

Date

Announce of official notification for CAT 2019

Fourth week of July 2019

CAT 2019 online registration opens

Second week of August 2019

Last date for submitting CAT 2019 online application form

Fourth week of September 2019

Correction window for CAT 2019 application form opens

Fourth week of September 2019

Issue of CAT 2019 Hall Ticket

Third week of October 2019

CAT 2019 Exam date

Fourth week of November 2019

CAT 2019 Result

Second week of January 2020

Eligibility Criteria for CAT 2019

The eligibility criteria for CAT 2019 are as set up by the organizing body. Applicants must ensure that they fulfill the eligibility requirements before applying for the management exam. The different criteria are as said below:

Participants must have a graduate degree in any branch from a recognised university or institute.

At Least aggregate marks need in the qualifying examination is 50% (45% for SC, ST, and PwD category)

Aspirants who have clear their professional degree of CA, CS or ICWA are also applicable for the exam.

Candidates who are in their final year of UG/ Post Graduate degree or are awaiting results can also apply for CAT 2019 offered they fulfill requirements.

CAT Application Form 2019

CAT 2019 Application Form will be available from the second week of August 2019. The application procedure consists of 3 steps which are given below: The application forms can be filled through online method only on the official website i.e. iimcat.ac.in. Applicants will need to fill up general details like individual information and academic qualifications.

The final step is payment of CAT Application Fee before final submission of the online application form.

Registration by providing basic details to get aspirant’s user ID and Password.

The final step to clear the application form is to remit the requisite application fees.

Application Form Correction for CAT 2019

If aspirants make errors while filling CAT 2019 Application form, they can rectify it during the limited time when the forms are open for correction. The correction window will open after the application procedure is over. The organizing authority allows students to make corrections in selected entries only.

The details which can be corrected are as follows:

Programs selected

Work experience

Percentage of marks scored

Steps to make corrections in CAT 2019 Application Form:

Enter login credentials such- User Id and Password.

Click on ‘Existing user’ tab.

Go to the official website of CAT, i.e., www.iimcat.ac.in.

Go via the different sections of the application form and make corrections accordingly.

Click on ‘save and continue’ or ‘save’ to exit the portal.

Application Fee for CAT 2019

CAT 2019 Application Form will be submitted successfully only after the payment of application fee. Those personals who do not remit the application fee will not be applicable for CAT 2019. Students will need to pay the application fees according to their category at the time of registration.

The fee can only be rendered via the online mode. Candidates can use Credit/ Debit card, Net Banking or Cash Card & Wallet facility to pay the fees. The category wise fee for CAT 2019 is mentioned below:

Category

Application Fee

General (UR)

INR 1800

NC- OBC

INR 1800

SC/ ST

INR 900

PwD

INR 900

CAT Hall Ticket 2019

CAT 2019 Hall Ticket will be allowed to participants who have successfully registered for the exam. It will be announced in the second week of October 2019. Admit cards can be downloaded from the official website of CAT. The governing body will not send hard copies of the admit card by post.

The details about the person such as his Name, Roll number, Date of birth, time slot and exam center allotted along with the address will be printed on the admit card.

It is a compulsory document of the entrance exam without which, no person will be permitted into the exam hall.

Hall Ticket must be retained until the time of admission and counselling, duly signed by the exam supervisor.

Steps to download CAT 2019 Hall Ticket are given below:

Admit card will appear. Cross-check all the details and take minimum two printed copies of the admit card.

Click on ‘Download Hall Ticket’ to reach the admit card.

Log on to the official website of CAT.

Log in using the User ID and Password.

Exam Center for CAT 2019

CAT 2019 will be organized in 140 exam centers across the country. Applicants will be allowed to choose 4 cities for the online entrance test as their preferred exam center. They should practice their choices in the application form according to their convenience. The governing authority will allow a center to the personals and the venue of the center will be mentioned in the hall ticket.

Exam Format for CAT 2019

CAT 2019 is a computer-based test (online test) and will be organized in the English language only. The question paper will have both, objective and type-in questions. The exam will be held in two shifts.

100 questions will be asked in total with 32- 34 questions per section.

Period of the exam will be 3 hours wherein each section will have a time limit of 1 hour.

The paper will be divided into 3 sections- Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning, Quantitative Ability and Verbal and Reading Comprehension.

About 70- 75% questions will be of MCQ type whereas the remaining 35- 30% questions will be non- MCQ type.

Every accurate response will be honored +3 marks while a penalty of -1 will be charged for wrong responses. Non-MCQ questions will not have negative marking.

Syllabus for CAT 2019

There is no set syllabus for CAT 2019 but we can determine the syllabus based on the analysis of earlier exam formats. Questions asked in the exam are up to 10+2 level covering a multitude of topics. The important topics that candidates should focus on according to the sections are represented in the table below:

CAT Result 2019

CAT 2019 Result will be declared by the second week of January 2019. These scorecards will contain the sectional and overall marks and percentile obtained by personals in the exam. The results will be released on the official CAT website in the form of a scorecard.

It is valid for only this academic year. The results can be checked by following these few steps:

Log on to the official CAT website.

Select the option of ‘Download Scorecard’.

Download the result and take print out copies for future reference.

On your account’s page, you can download the scorecard.

Enter your User ID and Password to know your result.

Cut Off for CAT 2019

The cut off for CAT 2019 will be decided after considering factors like the number of participants, the difficulty level of exam, seats available and earlier years’ cut off. Each IIM will release its cut off for shortlisting candidates for the selection procedure separately.

Aspirants must complete sectional and overall cut off to be applicable for the subsequent rounds. The overall cut off for IIMs usually falls between 90- 99 percentile.

The top 3 IIMs- Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta have a cut off over 99 percentile. Cut off for other top business schools like FMS, JBIMS, and SPIJMR is over 95 percentile. The expected CAT cut off for top management colleges is-

Name of Institute

CAT Cut off in Percentile

IIM, Ahmedabad

99.6

IIM, Bangalore

99.5

IIM, Calcutta

99.5

IIM, Lucknow

99.5

IIM, Shillong

98.5

FMS, Delhi

99

JBIMS

99

IIT, Bombay

98.5

IIM, Kozhikode

96.3

IIM, Indore

94.7

Selection Process for CAT 2019

All the participating institutes have their own shortlisting criteria for admission. Participants who fulfill such criteria will move forward to the next stage of the selection procedure. The basic norm is to complete the sectional and overall CAT 2019 Cut Off of the respective institutes.

The selection process followed by IIMs consists of Group Discussion (GD), Written Ability Test (WAT) and Individual Interview (PI) rounds. These are explained briefly as follows-

The topic can be concerned with socio-political issues, present affairs or some idea. The essay should generally be finished within 30 minutes.

Aspirants shortlisted based on their CAT scores have to appear for GD, WAT and PI rounds held by the IIMs or other b-schools.

For the GD round, participants are divided into groups of 8-10 members wherein, they need to discuss the given topic.

In the WAT round, students have to write an essay on the topic offered by the institute.

PI is the final round wherein candidates are interviewed by a panel of 4-8 judges. This panel assesses the profile of personals to see if he is fit for the chosen course.

Many top business schools follow a similar selection procedure. After all the rounds are organized the institutes publish the final merit list. This list is created after considering all rounds of selection and CAT 2019 scores. Aspirants are provided admission to different courses based on this merit list.